In the food service industry, the prompt availability of high quality hot beverages, predominantly coffee, is a necessity. Since customers may request such hot beverages in sporadic intervals and in varying amounts throughout the day, it has become necessary to have large volumes of fresh beverage available on demand. At the same time, it is desirable to provide beverage dispensing capabilities at a number of locations throughout a restaurant or other location so that servers or other wait staff do not need to return to the brewer to retrieve a fresh beverage.
Thus, manufacturers of coffee brewers have developed satellite (or shuttle) brewing systems. In such systems, the beverage is brewed at a central brewing station, and then transported in separate and portable beverage dispensing containers (commonly referred to as shuttles) to various convenient locations at which the beverage can be dispensed for consumption either by food service personnel or the consumer. For a further discussion of satellite brewing systems, see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,907,993 issued to Van Camp, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,571 issued to Roberts.
In some such satellite brewing systems, it is often necessary for the attendants to determine the remaining volume of beverage contained within a shuttle. Thus, prior art dispensers ordinarily resort to the use of a sight glass that is in communication with the volume of the beverage. The sight glass is often positioned on the front surface of the shuttle to provide a ready visual indication of the level (or volume) of beverage that is stored in the shuttle. However, sight glasses are often fragile and may be difficult to read when residue accumulates on the sight glass. Residue from the sight glass can also contaminate future batches of the beverage. Furthermore, the sight glass provides for an avenue for heat loss; for instance, when using a sight glass, the temperature of the beverage is lowered because a portion of the beverage that is poured out into each cup comes from the portion of beverage in the sight glass.
As the foregoing description suggests, in general, heat loss can be a significant problem in satellite brewing systems. This is exacerbated by the fact that the beverage is held in the shuttle until all of the beverage has been dispensed, frequently resulting in a holding time of multiple hours.
It would thus be desirable to provide a design and construction of portable beverage dispensing container (or shuttle) of a satellite brewing system that addresses some of these deficiencies of the prior art.